I need to have either a CT angiogram or cardiac MRI or a myocardial perfusion scan. If I were to have any of these done privately would the NHS accept and act on those scans if they were to show that I need a procedure on my heart or do they make you have the scan all over again on the NHS? (I'm asking this question as I seem to remember someone saying that a scan done privately on their son's gallbladder had to be done all over again on the NHS, just for the sake of it - not because there was any suspicion that the scan was erroneous or didn't show the full picture - so I wondered if that might be the same with heart scans - I wouldn't want to have a CT angiogram twice, what with all the radiation and dye.)
Many thanks in advance for any replies.
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Spicer21
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Quick Question who has said you need an MRI or a Perfusion Scan etc ?? from my limited knowledge one may lead into another i.e. not all booked until one confirms further investigation is required. needing the next step..
I don't think you can just get a Perfusion Scan they are quite a complex test and need to be undertaken in specialist units . You need to ask the person who is suggesting the procedure will the NHS accept the results?
A quick question but, unfortunately, it's a long answer to bore you with....
If I could, I would ask the cardiologist, but unless I pay another £350 private consultation fee, I don't believe I will get an answer because his secretary isn't being co-operative. She's ignored my emails and the answering machine is always on and when I leave a message she doesn't get back to me.
I was investigated on the NHS for a possible stroke. The NHS stroke specialist ruled out stroke but suggested that going on a calcium channel blocker might help with the symptoms I experience (nocturnal visual disturbances that wake me up in the early hours of the morning from my sleep).
Before he would prescribe the calcium channel blocker he said that he needed to order an echocardiogram to check out my heart. Unfortunately, that showed that I have basal hypokinesia with scarring, which indicates that I had a 'silent' (I experienced no symptoms that I can remember) heart attack at some point in the past.
The stroke specialist referred me to a cardiologist on the NHS. Worried about my situation, that I might have another heart attack while waiting on the NHS for an initial consultation, I decided to fork out for a private consultation with the cardiologist I'd been referred to on the NHS. He suggested that I either have a CT angiogram or an MRI with dye. As both tests would involve radiation and/or dye and I'm sensitive to so many things, I asked if there was a scan they could do that was less likely to cause allergy/sensitivity and the cardiologist suggested a perfusion scan which I agreed to (but which I later found out still involves injecting a radioactive tracer, and is far less accurate - only 40 to 70% accurate - as compared to a CT angiogram, which apparently has around a 96% accuracy rate). He offered to organise the perfusion scan on the NHS for me.
So, I'm now thinking, that I might risk having a CT angiogram (or have the perfusion scan, I'm still deciding) and have it done privately. The reason I'm thinking of having a scan done privately is that I saw the cardiologist quite some time ago and I've rung the NHS hospital and they can't see that it is being organised at all. And to confuse matters even more, I've now been sent an appointment for a telephone consultation with a different cardiologist to the one that I was originally referred to on the NHS for 2 months' time, so I've got no idea what exactly is going on. In the meantime, I could write to the cardiologist I saw privately to try to get a response from him, but I'm so cheesed off with it all that I'm thinking of having a scan done privately elsewhere and then telling the results to the second cardiologist that I have the phone appointment with in 2 months' time.
So, I'd be very grateful to hear from anyone who's had a CT angiogram or cardiac MRI or a myocardial perfusion scan done privately as to whether their scan or scans were either accepted and acted upon on the NHS or rejected by the NHS and had to be repeated merely because their scan(s) hadn't been done on the NHS.
Another quick question is how do you feel. Can you carry out everyday tasks like shopping going for a walk ? Private cardiologists tend to be a kind of cash machine, you are the cash and they are the machine withdrawing it !!
The NHS would make you a Priority if they thought you were at Serious Risk, my advice would be to relax and let the system take its course I am sure it will sort you out without draining your bank account !!!
I agree with your sentiments about private cardiologists! I also appreciate that you're trying to be kind and allay my fears, but I've had a heart attack and, without my having one of the scans I've mentioned, they don't really know what caused it and therefore they don't really know whether I need treatment sooner rather than later or not. (I also wonder - what with the backlogs caused by the pandemic - whether those that would have been classed as somewhat of a priority pre-pandemic are not being classified as such post-pandemic, and are therefore waiting a hell of lot longer for scans and treatment now.)
Thankfully, I'm currently not breathless and don't have trouble walking due to my heart (I do have trouble walking, but for other unconnected reasons) but I'd like to have whatever treatment I might need, stent or whatever, if any, before I have another heart attack and end up being breathless etc.
I am also severely sleep deprived and would like the go-ahead to take calcium channel blockers which could stop my nocturnal visual disturbances - and the sooner I know the score with my heart, the sooner I might be able to take them. (Nothing else I've been prescribed has helped with my blinding nocturnal visual disturbances, and my eyes have been examined and have been given the all clear for such things as retinal tears etc., that can cause visual disturbances.)
So, I'm back to my original question -- I'd be very grateful to hear from anyone who's had a CT angiogram or cardiac MRI or a myocardial perfusion scan done privately as to whether their scan or scans were either accepted and acted upon on the NHS or rejected by the NHS and had to be repeated merely because their scan(s) hadn't been done on the NHS.
i went to a private cardiologist for an echo scan i know he shared these results with my gp and this went on my records, following my scan my gp wanted to teview my meds so i presume they do indeed work alongside private care, hope this helps
Thanks, jeelpie. Yes, in the past my own GP has taken notice of other sorts of scans (not cardiac) that I've had privately, but none of those were passed on to an NHS consultant (because they didn't show up anything that needed a specialist opinion). My query is whether anyone has had a cardiac scan privately and then an NHS cardiologist took notice of that scan and acted upon it or if they made them have it again just for the sake of it, because it wasn't an NHS scan. (It wouldn't be good for people's health if they had to have repeat scans that expose them to dye and radiation unnecessarily just because the NHS - for legal reasons or whatever - doesn't want to rely on them...but then imho there are lots of things that don't make sense with the way the NHS is run.)
Hi Zbignieva. Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "The test may be done in an NHS hospital, unless you live near London"? I live in a county near to London.
There are far more private companies who run diagnostics in the hospitals in London. A lot of the labs are owned by Viapath, The Doctors Laboratory. I am sure there is private radiology as well.
Diagnostics are expensive, so for example, a Bupa hospital may send all their blood tests to an NHS lab, and pay the NHS to do so. That is cheaper than setting up a lab or buying a MRI etc.
The private sector is just bigger in London, the NHS labs are barely hanging on.
Yes, I am registered with the HCPC. It is a public-private organisation, the staff have private contracts, unless they hade TUPE.
Viapath was Serco, and it is a multinational company.
It still means privatisation of the health care service.
IPP and other private companies companies are scrambling to acquire labs and other diagnostics in the U.K.
If someone can explain to me how making money on top of expensive diagnostics without compromising quality, staffing levels and terms and conditions for the staff, I would love to hear it as the feedback from those that work in the labs isn’t great.
Hi. I had MRI cadiac stress perfusion test done privately. My consultant sends all my results to my GP. They work very well together. I now see my private consultant and my GP. So yes you can go private and yes you can still go to the GP.😊
Thanks for your reply. Have you ever used your private perfusion test results when seeing a cardiologist in an NHS hospital? What I'm concerned about is that if I get the perfusion test done privately the cardiologist at my local NHS hospital might want me to have the test again on the NHS just for the sake of it (because of protocol) and I don't want to have to repeat it and have another dose of tracer.
I don't actually see an NHS cardiologist ( lets just say I lost faith). If you have an NHS cardiologist all your results can be sent to them. Just let the people on the private side know that you'd like the results sent to your NHS consultant. Communication between everyone is the key!! I hope this helps.
Unfortunately I can’t answer your main question as I have never had any scans done privately but what I can say is my husband had a cardiac MRI at one hospital and then was referred to another and getting the scans/notes transferred was an absolute faff. You should request a copy of the scans yourself and the NHS shouldn’t reject them but they do have funny policies sometimes. Another piece of experience I can offer up is that cardiologist my husband sees privately also works for our local NHS hospital which works really well for us as we can see him privately for most things but if we need to see him on the NHS he can arrange that for us. Prior to this my husband had been referred to the cardiology department (NHS) but there was no sign of him being given any help. Once we saw the private cardiologist he went back into the NHS hospital and sorted all my husbands referrals and he’s now getting the proper attention he needs. I’m not sure if this is at all helpful, as you may not want to swap to a third cardiologist now! But if the one you’ve chosen to see privately only does private work they may not help you navigate the NHS at all.. also their secretary being rude and unhelpful sounds very off putting!
Thanks for your reply. I'm glad to hear that your husband managed to get the help he needed. The cardiologist I saw privately is the one that I was initially referred to on the NHS and during my (private) consultation with him he suggested that he order the perfusion scan for me on the NHS. I was therefore, hopeful, that he would do as he promised; he even wrote to my GP to say that was what he was going to do, but after that - nothing. If the cardiac scans didn't involve gadolinium contrast or iodine dye and radiation, I'd just get one of them done privately and hope that they would accept it on the NHS. On another forum I belong to someone said that their experience was that their NHS cardiologist accepted the results of a scan done privately but only after an NHS radiologist had reviewed the scan pictures (the NHS cardiologist didn't want to rely on an interpretation done by a radiologist done privately). This would delay things a bit, but would be kind of understandable I guess...but I don't know if that generally happens across the NHS.
I asked about paying privately for consultation with a cardiologist for my daughter and was told that was fine to do but you won’t jump the queue for treatment. If She had the private consultation and scan she would have to continue privately. As a nhs front line employee it was going g against my moral compass trying to jump forward by considering private as if becomes the ones wil finances have quicker treatment but she was a 20 year old with a heart problem in a Covid pandemic.
From another angle , I managed to get a MRI of my heart done earlier than expected but I’ve still got to wait for 6 months for follow up after my discharge.
Unfortunately There just aren’t enough nhs cardiologists available to hope for a quicker appointment
Before booking any test I suggest you check with the private provider about what information they will pass on to the NHS.
Will you be given a full details of the investigation and report?
Sometimes you can be charged for this information.
As the Consultant's medical secretary has not been responsive, have you considered contacting the Patient Advisory Liaison Service PALS of the NHS trust concerned and asking them for advice?
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